Tuesday, 9 December 2014

The other mini-project mentioned in my previous post was to get the new (and final) Plague Toad done.

I did a bit of work on him so he looks a bit different to the other two toads which are the same sculpt.

Made the mouth a bit smaller, added GS to the face, cut off one foot and repositioned it slightly and added a different texture to his back and side.

Originally I was hoping to re sculpt the broken off horn but in the end dismissed the idea due to a lack of sculpting talent.

Instead I cut what was left off then dremeled the area out. I then used the spare horn from Scabby to give him a nice new big horn (the other toads will be jealous). Bit of GS finished it off.

After a paint job this is what he looks like.

Bit rushed, base will prob need a bit more work in the future but he's good enough for tabletop standard which is all I have ever aimed for. At the moment I just haven't got time or concentration for any more than that.

Saturday, 6 December 2014

While I am now feeling a lot better than I was I am finding I still have little time to do any hobby stuff due to work annoyingly taking over.

All I have managed is the odd half hour here or there on a couple of mini-projects.

The first one is trying out the AdMech icon I cast up on a base.

I thought about having the icon popping out of some rubble, so I set about knocking one up.

By angling the mould you can get some part casts which are perfect for that half buried look...

All they need is a quick sand for a flat base and then they can glue them in place onto a base (a mini or a terrain base).

After an undercoat it looks like this:

Considering how quick I knocked it up with really very little care I think it looks decent enough. With more time spent putting one together I think the part angled casts will be perfect for this sort of thing.

It is now going to go into a box as I've got no use for it, I only built it as I wanted to see how the casts would turn out. I don't use the big flyer oval bases for my aircraft and I don't have any use for a rubble base so this is a bit unneeded to say the least.

Monday, 1 December 2014

So the last week has been another quiet one with me still being in no state to do any real model work.

As such I only managed to keep my eye in by working on the Adeptus Mechanicus icon.

I gave the icon an undercoat to help highlight any areas which needed more work. I spotted some things which needed to be worked on more, such as the sunken area round the edge and around the eye and nose.

The icon then got another undercoat...

At this point there wasn't much else I could do but do a mould and get a cast done:

Few air bubbles in the mould which was annoying but no problem to clean them up on the cast itself.

Plan is to turn a couple of these into rubble for bases. Plus when (I say when but 'if' would be more appropriate) I build city fight and Zone Mortalis boards these will come in very handy.

Now there is a chance I will get asked the question so I will say now I won't be selling any casts.

Monday, 24 November 2014

So I decided to go for a quick, small project before getting back into more involved hobby work. Something quick and easy to 'get my eye in' as it were. And something which wouldn't give me a (literal) headaches which most things seem to at the moment.

A while back I picked up a Forge World Adeptus Mechanicus Icon piece off ebay. I am 99% certain it is actually a recast going by the resin used and the quality of the casting.

Above is what it should have looked like. Below you can see what it actually looked like...

You can see lots of miscasts, cables are all rubbish and many details are lost or obscured and the thinner parts of the eye socket and nose walls are missing. Air bubbles in the mould have left some areas of clean up and one part of the cog border actually sags down.

I have always wanted one of these, no idea why as I have no real use of it, but I decided to have a try at rescuing the piece.

So first off I removed a lot of the details...

I ended up having to remove a bit more resin as I went along rebuilding everything.

After a days work I have ended up with this finished piece (though after I undercoat it I may go back and do some clean up work which is required).

Quite happy in the end how it turned out.

Not sure what to do with it, probably hold on till I can incorporate it into some terrain.

Saturday, 22 November 2014

But I have been doing stuff. Mainly buying more models and pottering about.

The Heresy Weekender tickets arrived - yay...

...but I am still waiting for Conquest to arrive, a bit annoying as I know plenty of people have had theirs arrive early. Bugger.

One thing I did build was this:

I used my entire stock of Finnboard doing that, and 'what is it?' I hear you ask...well something I have wanted for ages, namely a storage and organiser for my styrene strip. No longer will I have to spend ages trying to find a particular strip in the draw.

While doing that I also got a couple of hooks and a bungee to sort out my sheet materials:

I mentioned buying things didn't I? Well after picking up IA13 I have had Militia on my mind. I wanted to add a bit more of the chaos into them, something with just rank and file Militia it is hard to do - I didn't want to add Mutants or similar units but I felt they lacked something to set them a bit more apart from Guard.

Now I have always been a fan of the Renegade Ogryn and not long after doing my regular search of ebay I found these in my possession:

A cool thing with the Oggie unit in IA13 is that they combined the regular Berserker Ogryn unit with the Packmaster & his hounds unit. I wanted to take advantage of that and add even more character to the unit.

I like the FW hounds but don't like the Packmaster model. So as an alternative I went for the Warhammer Forge Skaven Wolf Rats. The full unit would therefore be four Ogryn and five Hounds.

Scale wise the Wolf Rats are certainly big enough, with their heads on they will be longer than an Ogryn is tall.

While rummaging around trying to sort some things out I came accross a box full of bits i haven't seen in ages. I did these for a participation board at a Games Day I ran a few years ago now.

I will have to re-work some of them and put them to some use again. If you want to see more of them including WIP shots have a look here.

While stuck killing time I came across a great blog which I encourage all to look at. A Galaxy in Flames - the WIP Istvaan III gaming board are worth paying it a visit alone.

I am hoping to get back onto the Junka tomorrow. Fingers crossed there will be an update in the week on it.